Power Ministers of all states and union territories will meet in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The meeting convened by union minister of power, Sushilkumar Shinde, will deliberate on the critical issues related to massive generation capacity addition programme of 78,700 MW in the 11th Plan, strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution system through Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (APDRP) and Rural Electrification through Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY).
Meanwhile, state power minister Doshehe along with two engineers from state power department left the state to participate in the meeting. When contacted over phone, Doshehe said that he would participate in the discussion and speak in favour of north east states.
This would be the first meeting after Sushilkumar Shinde took over as the union minister of power.
Besides, minister of state for power, Bharatsinh Solanki, the meeting is likely to be attended by union minister for new and renewable energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, union minister for petroleum Murli Deora, deputy chairman of planning commission, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, minister of state for coal (IC), Sriprakash Jaiswal and minister of state for environment & forests (IC), Jairam Ramesh.
About 200 delegates including the power ministers and power secretaries of various states and UTs and representatives of central and state power utilities are expected to participate in the meeting.
The daylong discussion will be divided into two sessions. The first session is to focus on Generation and Open Access while the agenda for the second session would be Rural Electrification and APDRP.
Meanwhile, faced by a severe power crunch due to the acute heat and no rains, the Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) has approached the Centre for power from the national grid to ease the crisis.
“The board through the state power department has approached the Central government to allot additional power from the power grid or from the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to help ease the severe crisis”, A K Sachan ASEB chairman told reporters here today.
“We have also approached them to purchase power from certain captive power plants from Western states, including Rajasthan”, the chairman said.